2013 4" Performance Wheels

[HumblePie]

It looks to me like the shaved down portion of the tread at the feed through point is leaving a significant flat spot. Isn't anyone concerned about a bumpy ride? I also think a layer of double sided tape applied first would help tread adhesion to resist the lateral torque, particularly for the areas furthest from the attachment point.

[JesseK]

Very nifty design!

@971: Did the flat part of the round wheel cause any 'drive straight' autonomous routines to NOT drive straight? If so, how did you compensate? Did the extra bump cause excessive noise in the gyro?

[Brian Selle]

One thing to note is that the new hub is slightly thicker (axle direction) than the previous generation performance wheel. The old wheel was 0.74", the new one is 0.80". Fortunately we were able to absorb the difference by using a thinner wheel spacer washer.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Very nifty design!

@971: Did the flat part of the round wheel cause any 'drive straight' autonomous routines to NOT drive straight? If so, how did you compensate? Did the extra bump cause excessive noise in the gyro?

When you are running on carpet, you don't notice. We did what Andy recommends and shaved the ends down. I would say that the bump on our wheels is similar to the bump with the rivets holding the ends of the tread down.

[Brian Selle]

We just got several of the new AM 4" performance wheels. Aluminum mag wheels for the robot, gotta love it. Very nicely made... should last a long time. I used roughtop for tread and found a few things:

1) Instead of shaving down the ends, if you get the bumps/waves of roughtop to interlock before inserting the 2 tread ends into hole it fits... just barely. You have to put the zip tie through the hole in the treads with a pair of needle nose pliers or hemostats AFTER you insert the tread through the hole.

2) In an attempt to eliminate/reduce the flat spot, I added "tabs" on the ends of the tread to keep the tread continuous on either side of the hole (see attached picture). Not sure it makes any difference as the flat spot is very minimal... but it looks nice and they lay flat.

3) The length of tread is slightly longer than the circumference of the wheel as the bending axis of tread must be near its center.

Attached is the flat pattern drawing.